


Incorrigible

by MathConcepts



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Caranthir's confused but he got the spirit, Elvish culture and customs, F/M, Feanorianweek2020, Implied/Referenced Sex, Introspection, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23335258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathConcepts/pseuds/MathConcepts
Summary: It's difficult, whatever this is, but he's learning to adjust to it.
Relationships: Caranthir | Morifinwë/Haleth of the Haladin
Comments: 5
Kudos: 78





	Incorrigible

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little Caranthir/Haleth drabble for Feanorianweek.

His tunic is too big for her, it hangs low on her hips and engulfs her arms where it would otherwise fit snugly on him. It's fine linen too, and it's wrinkling from how tightly she has crossed her arms, yet he is too distracted by the way the deep red cloth contrasts against her dark skin to care. She's angry with him, _furious,_ and yet all he can think of is how beautiful she is. He wonders if that's love. Or it could be stupidity. What separates them, and would he even know the difference if he saw it? His experiences with love have all been from the perspective of an outsider, not once has he ever touched that strange world of affection that others sing and write and weep over.  
  
He often wonders if she loves him, and if so, why. He knows he's dark and dour, nothing like any of his brothers, far removed from Maedhros's fierce spirit or Maglor's mystic grace, he possesess none of Celegorm's overpowering arrogance nor Curufin's crafty wiles, and he is neither as energetic and complimentary as his youngest brothers.  
  
Yet she favors him - and his bed - despite how disagreeable he knows himself to be. Though to be fair to the woman herself, there are times indeed when she is more disagreeable than him.  
  
"I think-" he begins, and she cuts him off with the arch of an eyebrow.  
  
"You do not." She informs him sharply, and begins pacing the length of the room. The sun strikes her when she passes by the window, and he wishes he had the skill to immortalize such an image. If he sends a painter to her, he wonders if she would consent to a portrait.   
  
"I've given you my answer, and I won't be changing it. Do you expect me to uproot my people and journey back north simply for your pleasure?" He doesn't expect it of her, no. He had been willing to host her people on his lands, and would be willing once again, but it is not more serfs that he wants. It's her. She laughs at his every attempt to explain this, and makes him creep to her in secret like a vagabond.

  
He could tell her again how he wishes her to be close, how he would give her a high place in his court and every honor that befit her valour, how he only wants to see her face every day, but it would be useless.  
  
"Come back to bed," he sighs, extending a hand to her. She stops in front of the window and pivots to face him, cloaked in sunlight.

"You can't fuck me into coming north with you." she says, and he snorts at her crude remark, a crude gesture in itself.  
  
"I can try." He speaks before he can stop himself, and then bites his tongue until he can taste blood, while she just smiles in that way that means that she's tolerating him.   
  
"The skill of your people far surpasses those of men, but not even you are that good in bed."  
  
"I should not have to sneak in like a thief to see my own wife." Haleth's face does a twirl through perplexed and alarmed, and settles into something tense, and guarded.  
  
"What in the name of the bloody gods you believe in makes you think we are wed?" she demands, and he gestures around them, her crude-hewn bed with it's tumbled furs and rumpled sheets, the trail of clothes and armor, gilded and not, leading up to it. She stares at them and then scoffs, seating herself beside him on the bed's edge, her legs dangling over.  
  
"The traditions of your people do not apply to mine." So she does know, but chooses to refute their union.  
  
"It is not that I do not wish to be wed to you," she begins as if she has heard his thoughts, "But my people's lives are short, and our pleasures few, and if allow myself this, with you, it is for my sake only. The memories of you will warm me when I am old, but you will forget me before the flowers rise on my grave."  
  
The last words insult him. "I won't forget you," he vows through gritted teeth, but she shakes her head, pulling her legs up and settling against him.   
  
  
"Our people die old, and die together. I will die, and you will live on, to find other loves."  
  
Perhaps if he possessed more tact he would not have said "Does that trouble you?" but he doesn't, and he does, and hurts no one but himself.  
  
"No." she says, completely sincere, and presses a kiss to the junction of his throat and jaw, on a patch of heavily freckled skin. "When I die, what need will there be for me to care what you do?"   
  
It hurts where she kissed him, his entire throat hurts. He hides his face in her hair, but too late. Haleth does not regret her words, only that they disturbed him. Murmured apologies and muted kisses follow, drifting off into something more. The Edain are not like the Eldar, they do not make love like the Eldar, slow and languid, with all the time in the world in front of them in which to savor each other. They consummate with a passion that borders on ferocity, and so does Haleth.  
  
Carathir prefers to lose himself in the feel of her, rather than to ponder the whys and wherefores of what the are doing and continue to do. It's enough now, to have her, however brief, and he must learn to resign himself to it.   
  
  
She's still in his tunic afterwards, and he pushes tightly curled strands of hair off her face as they lie facing each other. "If you would allow, it would honor me to think of you as my wife, even if I cannot claim it outside my mind."  
  
She calls him some variant of incorrigible and gives him her permission nevertheless, and if there are other things he wishes to say to her, other favors he would beg of her, he withholds. It is a precarious enough situation, and he knows himself, and does not trust himself.

**Author's Note:**

> There's hardly much fic about these two, and I think that's real shame because of all the potential this pairing has.


End file.
